The Islands of the Pacific

This is the story of the Pacific and its people, of the peaceful sea and the lands and lives it touches, and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Pacific Stories, presented by the National Broadcasting Company as a public service, and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin.

This broadcast series comes to you as another feature of the NBC Inter-American University of the Air with drama of the past and present and commentary by Owen Lassimore, authority on the Pacific and director of the School of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University, the islands of the Pacific.

Japan stands as tribe the island of the Southwest Pacific, here the United Nations are battering against the other defenses of our island empire. Here the Japanese have converted a larger island into formidable forthases and the smaller islands into fortified outposts.

The islands which had so long been isolated have become a part of the global war and give promise of playing an increasingly important role in the Pacific era to come. So many islands, Dr. Pacific, that their exact number is unknown.

Guests have been made that there are 30,000. First human inhabitants of the mid-Pacific islands were the Polynesians. The most daring deep sea voyages and explorers the world has ever known. The time has come, oh, high one.

This is a Polynesian weatherman. weathermen. The gentle winds are blowing up from the southeast. Burn strong winds from the southeast or high one. Are the hurricanes far? Yes, the hurricanes are safely passed. So also are the variable winds of the summer. And now that autumn is the favorable winds from the southeast have come. We have waited long for them. The time has come